You published content you considered valuable. You got 200 impressions. Yesterday a similar post from someone with fewer followers got 20,000.

It’s not your imagination. It’s not that your content is bad. It’s that LinkedIn’s algorithm changed drastically, and most of the advice you find on the internet no longer applies.

In 2025, organic reach on LinkedIn dropped approximately 50%. Engagement dropped 25%. And LinkedIn implemented fundamental changes in how it decides what content to show to whom.

This guide explains what’s really happening, based on the largest LinkedIn analysis ever published (1.8 million posts), and what you can do about it as an executive or founder.

The Data That Explains Everything: Organic Reach Dropped 50% in 2025

The Algorithm Insights Report 2025 by Richard van der Blom analyzed 1.8 million publications from 58,000 individual profiles. It’s the most comprehensive study on LinkedIn’s algorithm that exists.

The results are concerning:

Metric	Change 2024-2025
Organic reach	-50%
Average engagement	-25%
Follower growth	-59%

If you feel your content is reaching fewer people than before, you’re not crazy. It’s documented.

What the Analysis of 1.8 Million Posts Revealed

1. Saturation reached LinkedIn

For years, LinkedIn was the “untapped” network. Few creators, lots of audience. That changed. The number of daily publications has consistently increased, but the time users spend on the platform hasn’t grown proportionally.

Result: more competition for the same attention.

2. LinkedIn is prioritizing paid content

Like every platform, LinkedIn needs to monetize. Organic reach for company pages dropped more than for personal profiles. The message is clear: if you want guaranteed reach, pay.

3. Quality now matters more (but differently)

LinkedIn implemented more sophisticated metrics to measure quality. It’s no longer enough to get likes — the algorithm now measures the time people spend reading your content (dwell time), if they save it, if they return to it.

The June 2025 Change Nobody Explained to You

In June 2025, LinkedIn implemented a fundamental change to its algorithm. The news went relatively unnoticed, but its effects are enormous.

Relevance Over Recency: What It Means for You

Before June 2025, LinkedIn showed relatively recent content. A post from yesterday had a better chance than one from a week ago.

Now, LinkedIn can show posts from 2-3 weeks ago if the algorithm determines they’re relevant to you.

Gyanda Sachdeva, VP of Product Management at LinkedIn, confirmed it: the goal is to show “the right content to the right person,” regardless of when it was published.

Practical implications:

Your content has a longer shelf life. A good post can continue generating impressions weeks after being published.
Quality beats frequency. Publishing daily mediocre content is a worse strategy than publishing 2-3 times per week with excellent content.
Evergreen posts gain value. Content that remains relevant weeks later has an advantage.
Late engagement counts. Someone commenting on your post a week later is no longer “late” — it can reactivate distribution.

How LinkedIn’s Algorithm Really Works

LinkedIn’s algorithm isn’t a complete black box. We know the main phases each post goes through before its distribution is decided.

Phase 1: The Initial Filter

In the first seconds after publishing, the algorithm classifies your post into one of three categories:

Spam: Content that seems excessively promotional, automated, or violates policies
Low quality: Content that doesn’t meet minimum standards
High quality: Content that passes to the next filter

This initial classification considers:

Your content history
Obvious spam signals (many links, excessive mentions, bot patterns)
Basic text/image quality

Tip: If your posts consistently fall into “low quality” initially, the algorithm learns and future posts will be disadvantaged. Better to publish less with more quality.

Phase 2: The Test with Your Network

If you pass the initial filter, LinkedIn shows your post to a small sample of your network — approximately 10-20% of your connections and followers.

The first 30-60 minutes are crucial. The algorithm measures:

Do people click to “See more”?
How much time do they spend reading?
Do they like, comment, share?
Do they save the post?
Do they visit your profile afterward?

This is the moment when your post’s fate is decided. If the initial sample doesn’t respond well, distribution stops there.

Phase 3: The Engagement Score

LinkedIn calculates an engagement score based on multiple signals. Not all engagements are worth the same:

Action	Relative Weight
Substantial comment	Very high
Save	High
Share with comment	High
Long dwell time	High
Like	Medium
Share without comment	Low
Click on “See more”	Low

Comments weigh more than likes because they require more effort and indicate greater interest. A post with 50 comments and 100 likes probably has better distribution than one with 500 likes and 5 comments.

Phase 4: Expanded Distribution

If your post passes the previous phases with a good score, LinkedIn distributes it beyond your immediate network:

2nd degree connections: People who don’t follow you but have mutual connections
Relevant hashtag followers: If you used hashtags, people who follow those topics
Discovery feed: The equivalent of other platforms’ “For You”

This phase can last days or even weeks with the new “relevance over recency” approach.

Dwell Time: The Invisible Metric That Determines Your Reach

Dwell time is perhaps the most important factor of the current algorithm, and the least understood.

Why LinkedIn Measures Time Spent Reading

LinkedIn discovered that 90% of users consume content without interacting. They’re “lurkers” — they read but don’t like or comment.

This was a problem: if you only measure likes and comments, you’re ignoring the behavior of 90% of your audience.

The solution: measure how much time someone spends viewing your post, even if they don’t interact.

Dwell time = time a user spends with your post visible on screen

If someone scrolls quickly past your post, low dwell time. If they stop, read, maybe re-read, high dwell time. LinkedIn interprets high dwell time as a signal of valuable content.

How to Optimize Your Content for Dwell Time

1. Hooks that stop the scroll

The first line should make someone stop. Provocative questions, surprising statistics, counterintuitive statements.

Bad: “Today I want to share some thoughts about leadership.” Good: “70% of employees quit because of their direct boss, not the company.”

2. Format that facilitates reading

Short paragraphs (2-3 sentences maximum)
Blank lines between paragraphs
Bullet lists for multiple points
Bold text to emphasize key points

The goal is for someone to be able to scan easily and then decide to read more slowly.

3. Strategic length

Very short posts (1-2 sentences) generate little dwell time. Very long posts may be ignored.

The sweet spot for text: 1,200-1,999 characters according to the van der Blom study.

4. Content that requires processing

Numbered lists, frameworks, data that needs to be digested — all of this increases reading time. Not because it’s hard to understand, but because it has enough value for someone to want to absorb it.

5. Carousels and documents

Carousels/PDFs are the king format for dwell time. Each slide someone swipes counts as additional time. A well-made 10-slide carousel can have 5-10x more dwell time than a text post.

What Increases Your Reach (with Concrete Data)

Based on the analysis of 1.8 million posts, these are the factors that most positively impact your reach:

The Format That Generates +206% Reach

LinkedIn polls with 3 options and 7-day duration generate +206% reach compared to average text posts.

Why? Because polls:

Are easy to interact with (one click)
Generate curiosity to see results
Invite opinion comments
Have built-in engagement mechanics

Warning: Polls must be relevant and genuine. “Do you agree with me? Yes/No” is not a good poll. “What’s your company’s biggest challenge this year? A/B/C” is.

The “Golden Window” of the First 60 Minutes

Engagement in the first hour after publishing determines up to 80% of your post’s final reach.

Strategies to maximize the first hour:

Post when your audience is active. For Mexico: 9-11 AM on weekdays.
Respond to comments immediately. Each of your responses counts as additional engagement and encourages others to comment.
Engage on others’ posts just before publishing. This activates your network — the people you commented on will probably see your post shortly after.
Notify relevant people. If you mention someone in your post (genuinely, not spam), their early interaction helps.

Other Positive Impact Factors

Factor	Impact
Carousels/PDF (8-10 slides)	+45% engagement vs single image
Short native videos (30-90s)	+69% performance vs links
Respond to comments in 1st hour	+35% additional visibility
Text 1,200-1,999 characters	Optimal reach
Post 3x/week consistently	+120% visibility vs inconsistent
Images of real people	+38% vs stock images

What Kills Your Reach Without You Realizing

The 5 Mistakes Executives Make

1. Posting more than once per day

The algorithm explicitly penalizes saturation. If you publish 3 posts in one day, each one will probably have less reach than if you published one. LinkedIn wants diversity in the feed.

2. External links in the post body

LinkedIn doesn’t want you to leave LinkedIn. Posts with external links have significantly lower reach. If you need to include a link, put it in the first comment (reduces the penalty but doesn’t eliminate it).

3. Obvious engagement bait

“Comment YES if you agree” was tactical 5 years ago. Today LinkedIn detects and penalizes it. Same with empty “What do you think?”, emojis to vote, and other artificial engagement tactics.

4. Tagging more than 5 people

Tagging lots of people looks like spam and LinkedIn treats it as such. If you need to mention someone, make it relevant to the content. Mass tags penalize.

5. Editing the post in the first hour

Editing a post in its first hour of life can restart the evaluation process and lose initial momentum. If you found a typo, leave it. Only correct if it’s a serious error that affects the message.

The External Links Myth

There’s confusion about this. Let’s clarify:

External links DO penalize reach. This is documented. LinkedIn wants you to stay on LinkedIn.

The “link in comments hack” PARTIALLY helps. Putting the link in the first comment instead of the main post reduces the penalty but doesn’t completely eliminate it.

The best strategy: If your goal is external traffic, consider whether LinkedIn is the right channel. For building authority and personal brand, LinkedIn is excellent. For sending traffic to your site, other platforms may work better.

Alternative: Describe the resource in the post, indicate that the link is in comments or they can request it via message. This generates additional engagement.

Shadowban on LinkedIn: What It Is and How to Get Out

Shadowban is real although LinkedIn never officially acknowledges it.

What is a shadowban?

It’s when LinkedIn drastically reduces your content’s visibility without notifying you. You can still post, but practically nobody sees your posts. It’s like shouting in an empty room.

Signs you might be shadowbanned:

Sudden and drastic drop in impressions (from thousands to dozens)
Your profile doesn’t appear in searches where it used to appear
Posts that would normally have engagement receive nothing
Close connections say they don’t see your posts

Common causes of shadowban:

Aggressive automation use: Bots for likes, automated comments, mass prospecting tools
Many rejected connection requests: Sending too many invitations that people reject or ignore
Non-human behavior: Activity at impossible hours, repetitive patterns
Repetitive content: Posting the same thing multiple times
User reports: If many people mark your content as spam

How to recover:

Total pause for 48-72 hours. Don’t post, don’t comment, don’t send invitations.
Remove third-party tools. Disconnect any automation from your account.
Reduce activity. When you return, do it gradually. Don’t go from 0 to 10 posts per week.
Improve quality. The first posts after the pause should be excellent to “rehabilitate” your account.
Contact support if it persists. LinkedIn has forms to report visibility problems. Use them if nothing else works.

Content Strategy for Busy Executives

Understanding the algorithm is useful, but how do you apply it when you have a company to run?

Frequency and Formats That Work

Minimum viable frequency: 2 posts per week

Optimal frequency: 3-4 posts per week

Suggested format distribution:

2 long text posts (1,200-2,000 characters)
1 carousel or document
1 shorter post or poll

Comments: 5-10 substantial comments on others’ posts, daily or almost.

Why Less Can Be More

Posting daily can be counterproductive if:

Quality drops due to lack of time
The algorithm detects saturation
You burn out and abandon

It’s better to post 2-3 excellent posts per week for 12 months than 7 mediocre posts per week for 3 months.

Long-term consistency beats short-term intensity.

Frequently Asked Questions About LinkedIn’s Algorithm

How does LinkedIn’s algorithm work in 2026?

The algorithm classifies your content by initial quality, shows it to a sample of your network (first 60 minutes are crucial), measures engagement and dwell time, and expands distribution if results are good. In June 2025, “relevance over recency” was implemented, allowing old but relevant posts to continue being shown.

Why don’t my posts get reach?

The most common causes: posting at low-activity times, generic content that doesn’t generate initial engagement, external links in the post, hard-to-read format (walls of text), or possible shadowban from previous automation or spam behavior.

What’s the best time to post on LinkedIn?

For Mexico: 9:00-11:00 AM on weekdays, especially Wednesday and Thursday. Most importantly is to post when your specific audience is active and you can respond to comments in the first hour.

Do external links penalize reach?

Yes, significantly. LinkedIn wants to retain users on the platform. Putting the link in the first comment reduces the penalty but doesn’t eliminate it. Evaluate whether you really need the link or if you can achieve your goal another way.

What is dwell time on LinkedIn?

It’s the time a user spends with your post visible on screen, even without interacting. LinkedIn uses it to measure content quality beyond likes and comments, given that 90% of users consume content without visibly interacting.

Does shadowban exist on LinkedIn?

Yes, although LinkedIn doesn’t officially acknowledge it. It manifests as a drastic drop in visibility without notification. Causes are usually aggressive automation, spam behavior, or many rejected connection requests.

How many hashtags should I use on LinkedIn?

3-5 hashtags is recommended. More than 5 can look like spam and penalize. Hashtags should be relevant to your content and audience. Combine popular hashtags with some niche ones.

Do carousels work better than images?

Yes, significantly. Carousels generate +45% more engagement than single images and have higher dwell time because users spend time swiping slides. The sweet spot is 8-10 slides.

The Algorithm Changes, Principles Don’t

LinkedIn will adjust its algorithm many more times. The specific tactics that work today may not work tomorrow.

But some principles remain constant:

Content that genuinely provides value will always have space. Algorithms optimize for user retention, and users stay where they find value.
Real relationships beat engagement hacks. Connections who genuinely want to see your content will see it eventually, regardless of algorithm changes.
Consistency builds trust. Both with the algorithm and with your audience. Showing up regularly generates recognition.
Authenticity is detected. Users know how to distinguish between someone sharing a genuine perspective and someone optimizing for engagement. In the long run, authenticity wins.

Don’t optimize for the algorithm. Optimize for providing value to real people. The algorithm eventually aligns with that.

Related resources:

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